Plumbing a bottom drain questions

[Gummby8]

My pond is all dug out, about 4/5 feet deep. Upon researching putting in the bottom drain I never really saw anyone that clearly showed the plumbing going back to the filter area.

My question here is can I have the bottom drain piping go straight vertical or should it be plumbed at more of a slope? Or does the amount of water being moved cary the particles and junk no matter the plumbing incline?

EDIT: Forgot to mention I am making a DIY zakki sieve so it will work above the water line

 

[Becky]

I have no experience with bottom drains, but from a purely fluid dynamics perspective water pushed through a pipe with bends in it requires a greater force than through a straight pipe.

 

[addy1]

I have no clue on bottom drains either. Never used one or plumbed one that went through the liner. I did use a retrofit one in my Arizona pond, quit after a bit, drug in to many small fish. It was plumbed right to the external pump.

 

[Gordo33]

Did you search on kiophen.com. I considered a bottom drain when redoing my pond last year and found a wealth of info on that site .

 

[Mucky_Waters]

As Becky mentions, any plumbing sweeping turns are less restrictive to water flow than 90 deg turns, after that the choice is up to you.
I guess you should also factor in that in a properly designed gravity fed system the less disturbance you have to the settled debris and fish poop on the bottom of the pond that flows through the drain the more efficiently the sieve (or a settling tank) will be able to filter it out. Lots of twists and sharp turns in the line will serve to stir up the debris making harder to filter out. That being said my bottom drain has four 90 deg elbows, LOL, and it seems to work fine, but maybe it could be better.

I notice you already have 3 threads on this same topic and you've only made 4 posts in your total time here, it might serve you better to stick to one thread, at least for this one topic.

 

[audioenvy]

The two considerations are (1) reducing flow friction and (2) staying below the frost line.

Option number 1 is bad for both of those. Option 2 is better. Even better would be staying deep and then coming up using sweeping curves and staying below frost line until the pipe is inside the footprint of a covered (potentially heated) filtration area.

 

[audioenvy]

The design should put the pump AFTER the sieve (as you seem to have drawn). You are also going to need a check valve on the left side of the sieve (in your drawing) where the piping comes in so that water cannot flow back into the pond (and lose suction) when the pump is turned off.

 

[GBBUDD]

I just learned of this just this week myself . Code for my area and it seems it I in many areas you will need to have two main draines on the same drain line and at least 36" away from each other. Don't take my word for t but I suggest you talk to your local code enforcement. As far as vertical pipe or not with this new code for the drains to be able to pull in anything other then water e fish poop the pipe better be horizontal/ or the least pitch you can make it . sakcramento koi has a video where they recommend 3" pipe and not 4" to help with the suction. a video worth watching